The rapidly evolving demands of the 21st century include everything from climate change to demography, shifting customer requirements and expectations, the rise of technology, globalization, new markets, and new attitudes to work. Leaders must now operate in a way that inspires and engages people, while simultaneously addressing changing customer requirements and delivering results. Finally, all of these needs to be achieved with a sense of urgency, as the experienced leaders of the “Baby Boomer”generation continue to retire at pace.

Leading in a VUCA world that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) not only provide a challenging environment for leaders to operate and for executive development programs to have an impact: it also provides a much-needed range of new competencies. The new reality is resulting in the realization that new and different capabilities are needed to succeed.
In particular, leaders today must deal with:

Ambiguity brought about by the generational shift accompanied by Baby Boomer retirements and NextGen Leaders rising to take more and more senior roles. All of these factors combine to create an extremely dynamic climate that puts pressure on leaders to excel.

To lead successfully in the VUCA World, leaders need to LEAP through the fog and demonstrate the cognitive readiness competencies as explained in the next section and also possesses the following traits:

Liberal: open to new behaviour or opinions and willing to adapt or discard existing values if and when necessary to adapt to the new world

Exuberant: filled with lively energy with sense of passion and optimism in engaging the team and other stakeholders

With over 30 years of experience in international business, executive coaching and leadership development, there is no doubt thatProfessor Sattar Bawanyis one of the most trusted experts when it comes to international business strategies.

At present, Prof Bawany holds the following professional appointments:

Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Executive Education

Managing Director & Master Executive Coach, EDA Asia Pacific

Strategic Advisor of International Professional Managers Association (IPMA)

Professor Bawany has coached a range of leaders, from CEOs to high potential managers. His talks focus on encouraging individual initiative and leadership from a systemic perspective in order to achieve clearly defined business results. His specialty is linking people processes to business outcomes. Prof Bawany’s speaking topics are: